Tag Archives: Afghanistan

Telling The Truth

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Marc Thiessen posted an op-ed piece at The Washington Post yesterday. The piece is also available at the American Enterprise Institute website. The op-ed piece explains why President Biden should not go to Ground Zero on September 11th.

The op-ed notes:

Biden has no business setting foot in those sacred places on that hallowed day. I take no joy in saying this. As a general rule, I believe that when a president attends a ceremony on behalf of the American people, he is not representing himself but the office of the presidency. We respect that office, even if we do not respect the man who occupies it.

But this is different. Joe Biden is the president who surrendered to the enemies who attacked us on 9/11. He not only surrendered but did so with dishonor — leaving stranded behind enemy lines American citizens, legal permanent residents, and the majority of our Afghan allies who risked their lives to help us. Not by accident, mind you. Intentionally. He ordered the last US plane to take off from Kabul knowing that he was leaving them behind — even though he pledged not to leave until every American was out. He forced our NATO allies — who were in Afghanistan only because America was attacked on 9/11 — to do the same to their nationals and Afghan allies. This is a stain on the honor of our nation. At the very moment the bells ring at Ground Zero on 9/11, US citizens and allies will be hiding from Taliban death squads because of Biden’s shameful decisions.

In carrying out America’s retreat, Biden knowingly put the safety of US service members securing the airport in the hands of the Taliban and the Haqqani network — a US-designated terrorist organization — by refusing a Taliban offer to let the US military secure Kabul while we evacuated. The Taliban set up checkpoints where it prevented many Americans from reaching the airport, but it allowed a suicide bomber to get through — killing 13 Americans and injuring 18 more. On Saturday, those who died as a result of Biden’s blunder will rest in freshly dug graves, while those who survived will watch the ceremonies from hospital beds with injuries they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

As the evacuation took place, Biden repeatedly lied to the American people. He said no Americans were having trouble getting to the airport, which was blatantly untrue. He said the United States had no interest in Afghanistan because al-Qaeda was “gone” — when in fact al-Qaeda is deeply embedded with the Taliban. He claimed no allies were questioning the United States’ credibility, when many of our allies were aghast at his display of weakness and publicly pleading with him to extend his artificial deadline. He said that none of his military advisers had recommended leaving a residual force, when some had. He even asked the Afghan president to lie about how the fight against the Taliban was going, urging him to project a different picture “whether it is true or not.” And after it was all over, he still declared his Afghan debacle an “extraordinary success.”

Please follow the link to read the rest of the editorial. What is stated is true. President Biden has disgraced his office and disgraced America. We have lost our status in the world because of his dishonesty and his unwillingness to live up to our obligations to our allies to keep them informed of our actions and include them in our decision-making process.

This Might Be Legitimate, But It Is Still Scary

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Yesterday Just the News reported that an Afghan refugee at Ramstein Air Base in Germany boarded a plane headed for America with blasting caps and other explosives materials in his carry-on luggage. The article explains that he was not a terrorist–he was working as contractor for the U.S. government when he was evacuated, and officials believe the materials were related to his work and not terrorism. Okay, but how did he get the explosive materials into Ramstein Air Base?

The article reports:

“TSA advised that during the physical search (full open) of the individuals baggage a German military member identified a suspicious item in the baggage,” the TSA memo stated. The explosives were taken outside the hangar, an ordinance team was summoned and the man removed from the entry line from the flight, the memo stated.

Though the man wasn’t suspected of ill intent, the incident is a poignant reminder that the rushed evacuation and processing of refugees from a country with significant terrorist sympathies poses risks, although officials stressed the pre-flight screening did in fact work as it should.

It was not immediately clear how the man got the explosive materials inside Ramstein, but officials said they were working on the hypothesis that he had brought them with him from Afghanistan during his evacuation.

Officials said the Pentagon was taking the lead investigating since the episode occurred on a U.S. military installation. The FBI, Customs Border Protection, TSA and Homeland Security were assisting the investigation.

This really defies logic. We evacuated thousands of Afghans from Afghanistan without vetting them thoroughly, while according to some sources leaving behind many of the people who helped us. We really have no idea who we evacuated, and it’s not like we can call up the Afghan government and ask about the people we are not sending to America. To say that the entire operation of ending the war in Afghanistan was botched is a great understatement. The people who planned the evacuation need to be unemployed quickly.

When You Put Up A Sign…

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Yesterday NewsMax posted an article about the owner of a diner in Florida who put a sign in front of her diner telling people who voted for Joe Biden for President to eat elsewhere.

The article reports:

A Florida diner whose owner posted signs telling supporters of a ”worthless and inept” Biden administration to eat elsewhere closed early Wednesday because it ran out of food, the New York Post reports.

DeBary Diner owner Angie Ugarte last week posted a sign in the window that reads, “If you voted for and continue to support and stand behind the worthless, inept and corrupt administration currently inhabiting the White House that is complicit in the death of our servicemen and women in Afghanistan, please take your business elsewhere” after 13 U.S. service members were killed last week in a suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan.

“It was the only thing I felt like I could do,” she told a local news outlet. ”I was just angry; I was just let down. I felt like one of those mothers or wives or sisters who were going to get that knock on the door.

…Ugarte, who has owned the diner for five years, said she intends to keep the sign up as long as Americans are stranded in Afghanistan.

It’s her diner, and it is a private business. Therefore she has the right to let anyone in she chooses and not let anyone in she chooses. I understand her anger at Americans stranded in Afghanistan. However, I don’t think this is the right path. Those who voted for and support President Biden are Americans too. I think this approach simply alienates people. But I do love the way the public reacted.

Watch The Spin

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Chances are if you are reading this post and occasionally follow this website, you lost faith in the mainstream media long ago. That’s not news. However, one of my favorite websites, The Conservative Treehouse, has an uncanny ability to predict the next media spin. I think they have done it again.

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about the next war the military-industrial complex is planning to get America involved in.

The article reports:

First things first, the Taliban, ISIS, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, ISIS-k, are all factions of the same ‘authentic Islam’ ideology under the umbrella of the Muslim Brotherhood.  The U.S. and Western media, as well as the State Department and Intelligence Branch of the U.S. government, like to create false distinctions when it fits their need.  However, the groups are aligned – not adversarial, unless there is a geographic contest for power in a specific place.  That’s essentially the only time they are in conflict.

The ‘extremist’ (by our standard) factions, under the political cover of the Muslim Brotherhood, are united in their dislike of The United States, most of Europe and ‘The West‘ writ large.  They hate our filthy money and the politics that comes with it.

The two U.S. internal groups attempting to avoid accountability for the mess in Afghanistan break out to: (1) State Dept, CIA, Intelligence community; -vs- (2) WH, Pentagon and NatSec Council. Currently the State Department and Intelligence Community are winning the blame game. The White House and Pentagon are being identified by most Americans as responsible for the mess.

This duality of the State Dept (olive branch) -vs- Pentagon (arrows) is the internal dynamic depicted on the presidential seal. However, when the internal mechanisms are trying to save their institutional credibility; and those internal motives are based on trying to retain corrupt systems for affluence and influence; the modern battle is distinctly different.

U.S. money needs to flow somewhere in order for those who skim and direct the cash to have a cover for the business model created by the flow itself. The State Dept., CIA and Intelligence Community wants to send money to Afghanistan so they can position their friends and family to benefit from the business end of the process.

As a result of the State Department winning the blame game, they are now in a great position to flip the narrative and position the Taliban to need financial assistance. However, before they can pull off that shift, they need to change the public impression of the Taliban. After all, the U.S. has been calling the Taliban terrorists for decades….

… Insert ISIS-k!

The magical mythical ISIS-k becomes the new enemy allowing the “Good Taliban” shift.   The Taliban go from being terrorists, to being U.S. allies in the fight against ISIS-k.  See how that works?

By shifting this dynamic the U.S. State Department, CIA and Intelligence Community do not need to take apart their business model. Remember, the U.S. Senate is aligned in this group. The Senate supports the Dept of State and Intelligence Branch of government, writ large. This is also a mutually beneficial financial arrangement for the Senate members, their staff, their families, and the various NGOs that operate as beneficiaries of the support system.

If Americans continue to elect Congressmen who support this, then we deserve what we get. The time has come to elect Congressmen who will not waste American lives on foreign adventures that recklessly spend American lives and taxpayers’ money.

A Little Gratitude Would Be Appreciated

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about an Afghan interpreter referred to as Mohammed.

The article reports:

An interpreter who reportedly helped save Joe Biden and Antony Blinken after their helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing during a snowstorm was left behind in Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Tuesday.

“I can’t leave my house. I’m very scared,” the interpreter, identified only as Mohammed, told WSJ. Mohammed added that although he, his wife, and his four children were able to make it to the gates of Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), his wife and children were denied entry.

Mohammed was serving at Bagram Air Base in 2008, when a pair of Black Hawk helicopters carrying then-Democratic Sens. Joe Biden of Delaware and John Kerry of Massachusetts, and then-Republican Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, was forced by a snowstorm to land in a valley that was near the site of a recent battle. Blinken, then a foreign policy adviser to Biden, was also on the trip, according to CNN.

The translator joined the 82nd Airborne Division, driving into the mountains to rescue the group.

Mohammed reportedly fought in more than 100 firefights along with American troops.

“His selfless service to our military men and women is just the kind of service I wish more Americans displayed,” Lt. Col. Andrew R. Till wrote in support of Mohammed’s Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) application.

The withdrawal from Afghanistan is a disgrace. The military strategists who approved this plan need to be relieved of their positions. The difference in what has happened under President Biden and the fact that no American was killed in Afghanistan for eighteen months under President Trump is the concept of ‘Peace through Strength.’ When America projects strength, she can protect her people and innocent people around the world. When America has a weak President, the entire world is in danger. It is my hope that American and the world can survive the Biden administration.

A Kinder, Gentler Taliban?

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The Daily Caller is reporting that Afghans who helped America or American allies in any way are getting letters pinned to their front doors at night (“night letters”) telling them to attend a Taliban-conducted court or face death.

The article reports:

One of those to receive a warning was Naz, a 34-year-old father-of-six whose construction company helped the UK military build roads in Helmand and the runway at Camp Bastion.

He had applied for sanctuary in Britain under ARAP, the Afghan relocation programme, but had been rejected.

Naz said yesterday: ‘The letter was official and stamped by the Taliban. It is a clear message that they want to kill me. If I attend the court, I will be punished with my life.

If I don’t, they will kill me – that is why I am in hiding, trying to find a way to escape. But I need help.’

Another victim, a former British military translator, was warned he was a ‘spy of the infidel’ and must give himself up or pay with his life.

A third night letter warned the brother of an interpreter that he had been sentenced to death for sheltering him while a fourth was found in the shoe of an ex-British military translator as he left prayers at a mosque.

The letters are a traditional Afghan method of intimidation. They were used by mujahideen fighters during the Soviet occupation and then by the Taliban as both a propaganda tool and a threat. Often used in rural communities, they are now being widely circulated in cities.

A related article in the U.K. Daily Mail reports:

For Naz, the letter was specific. It named his father and their village and was stamped by the Islamic Emirate. 

The warning said he had been a ‘slave’ of Nato forces and had ignored warnings to stop working with them.

He was ordered to ‘present yourself’ to the court otherwise it would be ‘forwarded to the Sharia Court of Appeal where the judgment of death penalty will be passed in your absence. This would be the path you have chosen for yourself’.

Naz said: ‘The message of night letters is clear: you must comply or die. We have moved but we can’t keep moving. We must escape.’

There is no good news in this surrender. It was time to leave Afghanistan, but we could have done it very differently.

This Is Where We Are

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Yesterday Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air detailing some of the players and events in recent days in Afghanistan.

The article quotes one of President Biden’s recent statements about Afghanistan:

Look, let’s put this thing in perspective here. What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point with al Qaeda gone? We went to Afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, as well as — as well as getting Osama bin Laden. And we did.

Well, not so fast.

The article reports:

Say, remember when Joe Biden assured us that al-Qaeda was “gone” from Afghanistan? Ten days later, the security chief for Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora returned to his home province in Nangarhar, amid adulation — and Taliban protection. Amin ul-Haq even flashed a thumbs-up to his admirers out an open window as Taliban troops waved his car through a checkpoint.

In FDD’s Long War Journal, Bill Roggio reports:

Dr. Amin al Haq, the former head of bin Laden’s Black Guard, was captured on video in a large convoy as it traveled through a checkpoint in Nangarhar province. Haq was accompanied by a large convoy of heavily armed Taliban fighters in brand new SUVs. A small crowd flocked to Haq to shake his hand and take selfies with him.

The video of al Haq is evidence that Al Qaeda commanders now feel secure enough to appear publicly in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

The article at Hot Air includes a screenshot of the Taliban’s new arsenal:

I don’t care how much the media spins this–it is not good news.

 

These Are Very Special Americans

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On Friday, The New York Post reported that a group of retired military veterans has been rescuing our Afghan allies from Afghanistan.

The article reports:

A group of highly trained US military veterans has been secretly rescuing hundreds of allied operatives from Afghanistan — volunteering over fears those allies would otherwise be left for dead, according to a report.

The weeklong secret operation dubbed “Pineapple Express” has been carried out by a group of special ops veterans including retired Green Berets and SEAL Team commanders, they told ABC News.

They were driven by deep frustration “that our own government didn’t do this,” former Navy SEAL Jason Redman told ABC.

“We did what we should do, as Americans,” he said.

They initially formed to rescue an ex-Afghan commando who was getting death threats from the Taliban for having worked with US special forces and elite SEAL Team Six, ABC said.

…“I have been involved in some of the most incredible missions and operations that a special forces guy could be a part of, and I have never been a part of anything more incredible than this,” Gant (Maj. Jim Gant, a retired Green Beret) insisted.

“The bravery and courage and commitment of my brothers and sisters in the Pineapple community was greater than the US commitment on the battlefield,” he said.

The volunteer force was led by another retired Green Beret commander, Lt. Col. Scott Mann, who told ABC the team was proud to have helped “dozens of high-risk individuals, families with small children, orphans, and pregnant women.”

“This Herculean effort couldn’t have been done without the unofficial heroes inside the airfield who defied their orders to not help beyond the airport perimeter, by wading into sewage canals and pulling in these targeted people who were flashing pineapples on their phones,” Mann said.

…Some of those rescued said they witnessed people just inches away from them being killed, while others refused to leave unless their family members were also evacuated.

“Leaving a man behind is not in our SEAL ethos. Many Afghans have a stronger vision of our democratic values than many Americans do,” said Dan O’Shea, a retired SEAL commander and former counterinsurgency adviser in Afghanistan.

The article concludes:

Former deputy assistant secretary of defense Mick Mulroy said the task force felt it was their duty to save allies who “never wavered” in supporting the US.

“I and many of my friends are here today because of their bravery in battle. We owe them all effort to get them out and honor our word,” Mulroy said.

Men like these give me hope for the future of America. They are truly leaders.

I Wish They Would At Least Get Their Stories Straight

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One of the various methods police use to catch criminals is to separate the people apprehended at a crime scene and have them tell their stories separately without being able to hear each other. Generally the truth will be found somewhere in the contradictions. Right now we seem to be getting a number of contradicting stories from the Biden administration on Afghanistan.

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about one of those contradictions. In this case, the story and the contradiction both came from the same person.

The article reports:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed Sunday that the United States had not given lists of American citizens and allies to the Taliban.

Blinken joined “Meet the Press” with NBC’s Chuck Todd and disputed the accuracy of reports indicating U.S. officials had handed over lists of people the Taliban should allow through checkpoints and into the airport in Kabul. Just moments later, however, Blinken appeared to concede that U.S. officials had handed over passenger manifests for busloads of Afghan allies who were supposed to be allowed through security.

…“Chuck, it’s simply not the case. The idea that we’ve done anything to put at further risk those that were trying to help leave the country is simply wrong. And the idea that we shared lists of Americans or others with the Taliban is simply wrong,” Blinken immediately pushed back.

“What was shared?” Todd pressed.

Blinken went on to detail the lists of people U.S. officials had given to the Taliban in order to ensure their safe passage.

“When you’re trying to get a bus or a group of people through and you need to show a manifest to do that — particularly in cases where people don’t have the necessary credentials on them or documents on them — then you’ll share names of the lists of people on the bus so they can be assured those are the people we’re looking to bring in. By definition, that’s exactly what’s happened,” Blinken said.

“We’ve gotten 5,500 American citizens out of Afghanistan,” Blinken continued, saying again that the U.S. had provided passenger manifests or verified the names of individuals — especially those who might not have proper documentation on them.

“But the idea that we put anyone in any further jeopardy is simply wrong,” he concluded.

If you were dealing with humane, rational people who are willing to help you evacuate Americans and friendly Afghans from Afghanistan, that might be a reasonable course of action. However, if you are dealing with people who routinely cut people’s heads off for any minor slight or infraction, you might want to reconsider giving them a list of  your allies. I really can’t believe that the people in our State Department are that naive. Unfortunately if they are not that naive, this is being done on purpose. That thought is even more scary.

Recognizing “Spin” Preparation

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One of things I have recently noticed and wondered about is the recent statement from the Biden administration that all Americans who want to come home from Afghanistan will get home. That’s an interesting wording of the concept of no man left behind. On Thursday, Katie Pavlich posted an article at Townhall that might provide some insight into the wording of that statement.

The article reports:

“Any American who wants to come home, we will get you home.” – President Joe Biden, August 20, 2021 

That’s been the talking point from a number of Biden administration officials over the past week as the situation in Afghanistan continued to deteriorate. If you’re an American who wants to leave Afghanistan, Biden will ensure your departure. This is a lie. 

A close look at the language, combined with the official policy that the United States will be leaving the country on August 31 even as the airport in Kabul is blocked off by miles of Taliban checkpoints, gives away Biden’s strategy. 

Americans can’t safely get to the airport and the administration knows it. They’ve had their passports confiscated and destroyed by the Taliban. They’ve been beaten in their attempt to follow instructions from the U.S. government. 

When the mission to get Americans out of the country fails, Biden will blame the Americans for “not wanting to leave” or for not properly getting in touch with the State Department to file their paperwork. Keep in mind the Taliban has seized cell towers and shut off electricity in a number of areas, making it impossible to receive updated instructions from the U.S. government about how to proceed. 

For days, the State Department has told Americans to go to the airport, not to go to the airport, to go to the airport, and yet, they are already being blamed for their demise. 

“People chose not to leave. That’s their business,” Acting U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ross Wilson told CBS News in an interview this week.  

The article notes:

“The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely,” Biden said during a press conference on July 8.

This was a lie and Biden told it anyway while Americans stood in harm’s way.

In just a few short days, pointing fingers at stranded Americans will continue to be the cynical, despicable excuse for the administration’s decision to leave our fellow countrymen behind. It will be invoked after President Biden allowed the Taliban to overtake the country in record time, abandoning Americans behind enemy lines.

This is the money statement:

“We will continue to evacuate as many people as we can until the end of the mission,” Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby said, indicating the mission is to leave on August 31, not to get Americans out.

That is not what our mission should be. Our mission should be to remove those Americans and our allies who are in danger.

The article concludes:

By August 31, Americans who can’t make it to the airport due to suicide bombings, Taliban checkpoints and Biden’s incompetence, will be abandoned. Without U.S. troops in the country to get them out, they are all but doomed.

The only hope I see in this is that there are a number of private groups working hard to get Americans and American allies out of Afghanistan. That is not the way it should be, but at least that fact might lessen the number of people who are being killed by the Taliban now or will be killed by the Taliban when we leave.

Does Anyone Actually Believe This?

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Yesterday Newsbusters posted an article about some recent reporting done by Newsweek. Newsweek posted the following headline, “Seeking World Recognition, Taliban Vows to Help Fight Terror and Climate Change.” I am willing to believe that the Taliban seeks world recognition. I am not willing to believe that they will help fight terrorism and climate change.

Newsbusters reports:

Newsweek Senior Writer of Foreign Policy Tom O’Connor pushed how Taliban Cultural Commission member Abdul Qahar Balkhi “told Newsweek that his group sought worldwide recognition of the Islamic Emirate.” Balkhi propagandized to the outlet how the organization’s drive for “recognition” would be bolstered in part by the terror group’s commitment to “fight terror” and so-called climate change. “‘We hope not only to be recognized by regional countries but the entire world at large as the legitimate representative government of the people of Afghanistan,’” Balkhi said in part, according to Newsweek.

It is damning that a U.S. publication would lower itself so far down the eco-extremist cesspool that it would attempt to humanize an Islamic terrorist group currently slaughtering people in Afghanistan as a result of President Joe Biden’s massive foreign policy failure.

The article at Newsbusters concludes:

Newsweek’s decision to provide a megaphone to the Taliban wasn’t the first time a prominent outlet has tried to nonsensically lump the terrorist group and climate change together. Recently, CBS News published an outrageous story blaming climate change for the Taliban’s rise. CBS News climate and energy reporter Cara Korte’s absurd story was headlined: “How climate change helped strengthen the Taliban.”

But O’Connor’s Taliban spin was horrific in another context as well. The United Nations reported in July that “[m]ore women and children were killed and wounded in Afghanistan in the first half of 2021 than in the first six months of any year since records began in 2009.” The UN said these records followed “the Taliban offensive to take territory from Government forces.” But that didn’t stop O’Connor from summarizing the Taliban’s absurdity that “militants would never again be allowed to launch attacks against other countries” in the first paragraph of his story.

Conservatives are under attack. Contact Newsweek and hold it to account for pushing the Taliban’s talking points.

Anyone who relies on the mainstream media as their only news source at this time is not hearing the truth. The lies that they are hearing endanger themselves and our country.

How Much Military Equipment Did We Leave Behind?

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Our obvious priority as a country should be to get all Americans and Afghans who helped America out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible. However, as we do that, we should consider how much military equipment we left behind for the Taliban (equipment that will be reverse engineered by the Russians and the Chinese and put to use by the Iranians).

Yesterday Just the News posted an article with the numbers. Congratulations, American taxpayers, you are now funding the military of the Taliban, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and China.

The article reports:

The U.S. military is leaving behind 75,000 vehicles, 600,000 weapons and 208 airplanes/helicopters in Afghanistan as the Taliban takes control of the country, according to the watchdog group Open the Books.

“We’ve made the Taliban into a major U.S. arms dealer for the next decade,” said Adam Andrzejewski, CEO & founder of Open the Books. “They now control 75,000 military vehicles. This is about 50,000 tactical vehicles, 20,000 Humvees they control about 1,000 mine-resistant vehicles, and even about 150 armored personnel carriers.”

In total, the U.S. government spent an estimated $83 billion of taxpayer funds on weapons, vehicles and airplanes for the Afghan military. 

…Andrzejewski said his organization “found a Federal Audit that detailed up to $200 million worth of drones that had disappeared,” adding that “we don’t know where 600,000 weapons are within the country.” 

The Taliban also reportedly has access to biometrics data of Afghans that helped U.S. forces during the war.

The last sentence is the one that scares me the most. We have turned those people over to the Taliban to be tortured and killed.

This Is What Desperation Looks Like

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Remember when you were a child or were raising children and anything bad that was done in the house was done by “not me”? It seems as if the Biden administration learned that lesson well. They are desperately trying to avoid responsibility for the humanitarian disaster that is unfolding in Afghanistan.

Yesterday Breitbart reported that CBS News is claiming that climate change is responsible for strengthening the Taliban. Really? President Jefferson was dealing with the Barbary Pirates during his term as President. Did climate change strengthen them?

The article at Breitbart reports:

CBS News has blamed “climate change” for abetting the Taliban in their rise to power in Afghanistan, insisting that global warming has forced farmers into debt and into the arms of the Taliban.

In a risible report that has been compared to spoofs in the Babylon Bee and the Onion, CBS News asserted last week that Afghan farmers struggle to maintain productive crops and thus have to borrow funds to survive.

“When Afghans can’t pay off lenders, the Taliban often steps in to sow government resentment,” CBS News declared in its airtight “gotcha” report.

“If you’ve lost your crop and land or the Afghan government hasn’t paid enough attention then of course, the Taliban can come and exploit it,” the article states, citing Kamal Alam, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center.

CBS News does not bother explaining how “drought” and “flood-ravaged soil,” which have been a constant in Afghanistan for ages, are suddenly the result of “climate change.” They seem to assume that any weather-related phenomenon, no matter how commonplace, must somehow be related to global warming.

The article concludes:

In 2014, Charles B. Strozier, professor of history at the City University of New York, asserted that “environmental stressors and political violence are connected in surprising ways” and suggested driving hybrid cars as a way to thwart the Taliban’s war on girls.

“If more Americans knew how glacial melt contributes to catastrophic weather in Afghanistan — potentially strengthening the Taliban and imperiling Afghan girls who want to attend school — would we drive more hybrids and use millions fewer plastic bags?” Strozier asked rhetorically. “How would elections and legislation be influenced?”

I hate to disagree with the learned professor, but Islam has been waging war on women long before the automobile was invented. Sharia Law is the basis for the Taliban’s war on girls. Sharia Law goes back to the founding of Islam. While limiting our carbon footprint is an admirable goal, it will not improve the lives of the women left behind in Afghanistan.

Harsh Words, But True

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The Federalist posted an article today by Fred Fleitz, who is currently president and CEO of the Center for Security Policy. He served in 2018 as deputy assistant to the president and chief of staff of the National Security Council. Fleitz held national security jobs for 25 years with the CIA, DIA, Department of State, and the House Intelligence Committee staff. He believes that the only way back to some sort of credibility for America after the Afghanistan fiasco is to replace President Biden’s top national security advisers with experts who have the experience, principles, and gravitas to reverse the damage Biden is doing to our national security and will stand up to future unsound and dangerous decisions by this president.

The article reports:

In a perfect world, Biden would immediately resign, be impeached, or be removed from office under the 25th Amendment for this unprecedented incompetence and dereliction of duty.

To remove the president under the 25th Amendment, the vice president and the majority of the cabinet would need to determine that Biden is unfit for office. Congress would then need to approve that process by a two-thirds vote in both chambers. It is hard to see how a majority of Biden’s cabinet or two-thirds of the Democrat-controlled Congress would agree to such action.

Impeachment would require passage of articles of impeachment by a majority of the House and conviction and removal by a two-thirds vote in the Senate. Democrats will not permit this now, but it might be possible in early 2023 if Republicans take control of Congress in the 2022 midterm elections.

The article notes that removing President Biden from office is probably not possible right now. When you talk about removing President Biden from office, you need to remember that he will be replaced by Vice-President Kamala Harris. At that point, the Democrats lose their 51st tie-breaking vote in the Senate. That fact may partially explain why Joe Biden has not already been removed.

The article reports:

It is pointless now for National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley to claim or leak to the press that they opposed Biden’s decision to rapidly withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. They knew this decision was wrong and dangerous. They were duty-bound to resign and report Biden’s reckless decision to Congress.

Making this worse, most of Biden’s senior national security advisers are unqualified yes-men. Putting aside buffoonish Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan are third-stringers out of their league. And Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin apparently has so little influence with Biden that the president forgot his name at a press conference.

The article concludes:

Biden’s senseless Afghanistan policy and unmistakable signs of his mental decline strongly suggest he is not capable of serving as commander-in-chief. Democrats almost certainly will not agree to remove him, so their Republican colleagues must pressure them to pursue the next best option: surrounding Biden with highly qualified and principled national security experts who will not tolerate more irrational national security decisions.

To safeguard America’s national security and global leadership, we need bipartisan action now to compel President Biden to take this action.

Our country’s security is in danger as long as Joe Biden is President.

 

The Friday Night News Dump

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If you are a political person who has to report on a story that does not support the media narrative, the best time to leak the story is on a Friday night. It is really advantageous to leak the story on a Friday night when something like the fall of Afghanistan is occurring. The chances of anyone seeing your story are minuscule compared to what they normally would be. So it is not surprising that the following story was posted by Reuters at 5 pm on Friday, August 20th.

Reuters reports:

The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result, according to four current and former law enforcement officials.

Though federal officials have arrested more than 570 alleged participants, the FBI at this point believes the violence was not centrally coordinated by far-right groups or prominent supporters of then-President Donald Trump, according to the sources, who have been either directly involved in or briefed regularly on the wide-ranging investigations.

“Ninety to ninety-five percent of these are one-off cases,” said a former senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation. “Then you have five percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages.”

This is not news to anyone with a brain. There were a lot of eyewitness accounts about people who were not dressed like the Trump supporters at the rally and did not have the attitude that was prevalent at the rally. There was also the fact that the attack on the Capitol occurred before the rally was over. There was also the fact that President Trump instructed those at the rally to go to the Capitol to show their support for the Congressmen protesting the possible election fraud and to do it peacefully. This news article goes against the picture the Democrats and some Republicans were attempting to paint. Therefore it was released at dinnertime on Friday.

The article continues:

Stone, a veteran Republican operative and self-described “dirty trickster”, and Jones, founder of a conspiracy-driven radio show and webcast, are both allies of Trump and had been involved in pro-Trump events in Washington on Jan. 5, the day before the riot.

FBI investigators did find that cells of protesters, including followers of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys groups, had aimed to break into the Capitol. But they found no evidence that the groups had serious plans about what to do if they made it inside, the sources said.

The article includes a picture of one aspect of what happened in the Capitol that day with a predictable caption. There are no pictures taken from the video of the police waving the protesters in.

The article notes:

Prosecutors have filed conspiracy charges against 40 of those defendants, alleging that they engaged in some degree of planning before the attack.

Many of those defendants are still being held in intolerable conditions in the Washington, D.C., jail without bail or visits from their families. They are essentially political prisoners in America.

The article includes the usual spin, failing to mention that the assault on the Capitol began before President Trump told his supporters to peacefully march there and referring to the President’s speech as incendiary.

Again, the article at Reuters is a classic example of a Friday-night news dump. They spun it as best they could, but a well-informed reader will see right through the spin.

Would Anyone Actually Want This Job?

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On Tuesday, MRCTV reported that the United Nations has an interesting job listing on its website. The listing is for a “Partnership Specialist” to bring gender equality to Afghanistan.

This is a portion of the listing:

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

UN Women is dedicated to advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment in Afghanistan. Staff and consultants of the Afghanistan Country Office (ACO) are expected to contribute to a professional working environment in which the strengthening of national capacities and human potential is prioritized. Respect for diversity and human dignity is required, as is the active pursuit of a collaborative and inclusive approach to both internal and external stakeholders, including colleagues and partners.

Under the direct supervision of the Country Representative, the Partnerships and Reporting Specialist will be responsible and accountable for the effective and efficient provision of donor-related support services to senior management, programmes and operations units within the Afghanistan Country Office (ACO). The donor related support services include external relations and resource mobilization coordination, coordinating the preparation of proposals and donor reports and maintaining a working relationship between UN Women and donors.

The duties and responsibilities include:

Build and maintain effective external relations, strategic partnerships and support resource mobilization:

    • Develop the resource mobilization strategy/plan for the Afghanistan Country Office (ACO) and coordinate implementation;
    • Undertake ad-hoc donor studies, research, and other activities to identify funding opportunities; update the resources mobilization strategy as needs emerge;
    • Develop a prospective donor profile database that includes prospective donor funding areas, geographical and sectoral preferences, criteria, and policies with a view to identifying funding opportunities;
    • Monitor calls for proposals related to UN Women ACO mandate;
    • Initiate Resource Mobilization meetings and presentations to prospective donors in Afghanistan and outside, including preparation of briefing notes;
    • Design and implement effective advocacy strategies and methods for proactive and strategic targeting of partners and donors.
    • Convene and facilitate donor working group on gender to
    • Manage and coordinate relationships with key partners; provide technical inputs to senior management’s efforts to develop new and innovative partnerships;
    • Develop and implements strategies for maximizing potential for existing trust funds and regional projects and other sources;
    • Provide technical support the drafting and review of partner-specific Framework Arrangements and Cost Sharing Agreements.

The job posting notes:

Note:

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

MRCTV notes:

The members of the Security Council called for an immediate end to the violence in Afghanistan, the restoration of security, civil and constitutional order, and urgent talks to resolve the current crisis of authority in the country and to arrive at a peaceful settlement through an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned process of national reconciliation. They underscored that a sustainable end to the conflict in Afghanistan can only be achieved through an inclusive, just, durable and realistic political settlement that upholds human rights, including for women, children and minorities. The members of the Security Council called on parties to adhere to international norms and standards on human rights and put an end to all abuses and violations in this regard.

Somehow I don’t think the actions of the United Nations Security Council will have any results. You really can’t make this stuff up.

Bad Decisions Have Bad Results

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In October 2018 The Military Times reported the following:

Five members of the Afghan Taliban who were freed from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in exchange for captured American Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl have joined the insurgent group’s political office in Qatar, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Tuesday.Guantn

They will now be among Taliban representatives negotiating for peace in Afghanistan, a sign some negotiators in Kabul say indicates the Taliban’s desire for a peace pact.

Others fear the five, all of whom were close to the insurgent group’s founder and hard-line leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, bring with them the same ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam that characterized the group’s five-year rule that ended in 2001 with the U.S.-led invasion.

On Monday, The New York Post reported:

When President Barack Obama released five Taliban commanders from the Guantanamo Bay prison in exchange for an American deserter in 2014, he assured a wary public that the dangerous enemy combatants would be transferred to Qatar and kept from causing any trouble in Afghanistan.

In fact, they were left free to engineer Sunday’s sacking of Kabul.

Soon after gaining their freedom, some of the notorious Taliban Five pledged to return to fight Americans in Afghanistan and made contacts with active Taliban militants there. But the Obama-Biden administration turned a blind eye to the disturbing intelligence reports, and it wasn’t long before the freed detainees used Qatar as a base to form a regime in exile.

Eventually, they were recognized by Western diplomats as official representatives of the Taliban during recent “peace” talks.

…After raiding the presidential palace in Kabul, a group of armed Taliban fighters told Al Jazeera that they were arranging to bring back their Gitmo-paroled leadership from Qatar upon securing the capital. One unidentified fighter, who blasted America for “oppressing our people for 20 years,” claimed he had also been locked up at the Guantanamo Bay facility. It’s more evidence that Gitmo catch-and-release policies facilitated the fall of Afghanistan to the enemy that Washington vowed to crush after 9/11.

Leopards don’t really change their spots:

The mastermind of the regime change is former detainee Khairkhwa, the Taliban mullah whom Obama released from Gitmo even though the Pentagon classified him as too dangerous to release.

The article notes the behavior of the Taliban as they conquer Afghanistan:

Earlier this year, Khairkhwa assured the administration that the Taliban would not launch a spring military offensive if Biden committed to removing all remaining American troops. He also promised not to retaliate against any Afghans who worked with the US military or the US-backed government in Kabul. But Khairkhwa showed no signs of remorse or rehabilitation inside Gitmo — if anything, he’s probably more embittered toward the United States. Why would they believe him?

Reports coming out of Kandahar and Kabul indicate the extremists have already broken their word. Taliban thugs have started a reign of terror against people who cooperated with Westerners. Guided by a “kill list,” they are going door to door to punish their enemies.

The New York Post article concludes:

It’s not clear if then-Vice President Biden was fully on board with Obama’s controversial prisoner exchange. But in a reversal of Trump administration policy, Biden has restarted Obama’s program to release Gitmo detainees as part of a renewed push to close the prison.

Last month, the president released his first prisoner — accused terrorist Abdul Latif Nasser — leaving the number of remaining detainees at 39. Ten others have been cleared for release, while still others have appealed to Biden through their pro-bono defense lawyers to ensure their release, despite the risk of them returning to militant activities like the Taliban Five.

If Obama and Biden had left the five Taliban thugs to rot in Cuba, Kabul more than likely would not be back in the clutches of the Taliban right now. And maybe Americans wouldn’t have sacrificed more than 2,400 troops and $1 trillion in vain.

The Obama administration’s foreign policy decisions were not helpful to our nation. It looks as if the Biden administration has the same problem.

Be Careful Of The Spin

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I don’t claim to be able to predict the future, but I am reasonably good at observing trends in the media. The next step by the collective voice of the mainstream media will be to attempt to paint the Taliban of today as different from the Taliban that we have known historically. They will be portrayed as the kinder, gentler Taliban. Please note the video in the previous article. The reporter notes that the Taliban soldiers are shouting “death to America,” but they seem friendly at the same time. That is a foretaste of the mainstream media reporting to come. Expect to see an attempt to portray the Taliban as simply patriotic Afghani people in the near future.

Today, One America News posted an article with the headline, “Taliban tries to appear inclusive in first press conference since taking control.” The Taliban knows how to play the American media.

There are a few things that are noteworthy in the article:

Of the various networks that attended the conference, many conveyed the same message. That message was that the Taliban is trying to come off as more moderate and less violent than before.

Mujahid attempted to paint a picture of a simple bureaucratic shift as if the last several weeks of bloodshed was merely a political procedure used in place of democratic elections. “A new government is about to be founded,” said Mujahid. “After completing a series of political procedures, we will hold a meeting with the leaders of various political factions and witness the birth of a political agreement. Then a strong Islamic government acceptable to everyone shall be established.”

…He went on to claim that things would be different this time around and that the people of Afghanistan had nothing to fear. However, the people of Afghanistan and the rest of the nation have begged to differ.

Mujahid also claimed the treatment of women in the Afghan society would be different, stating they would not be subjected to violence and would be given the opportunity to even participate in the Taliban’s new government. Although, a former family court judge who fled the Taliban, Marzia Babakarkhail, said those are empty promises.

The Taliban leaders have also stated that women would be given rights within the scope of Sharia Law. Essentially that means that women will have no rights.

This is not a kinder, gentler Taliban. There is no such thing. Prepare yourself for horror stories about the atrocities committed by the Taliban as they take over Afghanistan.

The World We Now Live In

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I am not going to post a lot about Afghanistan today. I will say I am heartbroken because of what is happening there. Innocent people are being slaughtered because of their faith, because of their political beliefs, or just because. I don’t entirely blame President Biden–it took us almost twenty years to mess this up so badly. He is only the last link on the chain. I believe an orderly withdrawal was possible, but there had to be some serious carrots and some serious sticks. Unfortunately President Biden’s track record on foreign policy has never been that good.

Yesterday The New York Sun posted its obituary for Afghanistan. Please follow the link to read the entire article. I will post a few highlights here.

The article notes that there actually is a strategic interest in dealing with the Taliban:

The first thing we did when the news came in that the capital of Afghanistan had fallen to our enemies was reach for our dog-eared copy of Peter Kann’s “Obituary for South Vietnam.” It was issued in the Wall Street Journal on May 2, 1975, the morrow of the communist conquest. We later personally heard the Journal’s legendary editor, Robert Bartley, call it the finest op-ed piece he’d ever published.

What distinguished it from the cataract gushing from the editorial pages of the day was a sympathy for our defeated allies, a fidelity to the ideals for which our GIs went to war, and a visceral distaste for the totalitarianism that drove the Soviet Union and its puppets in Hanoi to victory. He acknowledged that there were many Americans who “breathed a sigh of relief” when Vietnam fell, but he was with the mourners.

That is where our own sentiments lie today in respect of Afghanistan. They lie with the GIs who gave their hearts — and all too often their lives — to a fight that was launched against our country, out of the blue, by al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts in Afghanistan. They lie with the Afghan soldiers, warlords, and leaders who sided with America. And the millions of Afghan women and men who dreamed of an end of oppression.

To hear an American president talk as Mr. Biden does about a war-time ally is shocking. Mr. Biden has tried to palm off on his countrymen the idea that he was bound by an agreement President Trump made for a May deadline. Mr. Biden has made it his business to tear up every commitment Mr. Trump made on anything. That Mr. Biden couldn’t find it within himself to break with Mr. Trump on Afghanistan reeks of hypocrisy.

What a contrast to the way our presidents conducted themselves during Vietnam. When our Free Vietnamese allies had their backs to the wall, President Nixon and then President Ford pleaded with Congress to help Vietnam stay in the fight. Henry Kissinger literally prowled the halls of Congress. In contrast, when Afghanistan had its back to the wall against the Taliban blitzkrieg, Mr. Biden and his aides have resorted to blame-shifting the consequences of his actions.

There has been no talk of the strategic importance of Afghanistan and our bases there, though it is well understood by our military leaders (and GIs). Iran lies to the West, Pakistan to the South, China to the East. Afghanistan has long been known as the Asian roundabout. Without a presence there, we lose all access to Central Asia. Mr. Biden might come to miss that feature of the Afghan drama soon enough.

This event is a sad chapter for America and for freedom. We made many mistakes along the way. I think it is time to re-establish the idea that we cannot ever again enter a war without a plan to win it. Somehow since WWII we have lost the knowledge or the desire to actually win a war. It should also be noted that we cannot install freedom in a country that does not have the leadership to fight for it. It is no coincidence that the day before September 11, 2001, the Taliban killed the leader of the Northern Alliance. Tyrants have a history of removing anyone who may be a current or future threat to them.

Leadership Finds Its Way To The Top

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Just the News posted an article today about Christopher Miller, acting defense secretary to replace the newly fired Mark Esper.

The article reports:

“The dude’s legit,” one long serving member of the special operations community told Just the News. “Everyone loves him.”

Miller, 55, is known among his Special Forces peers for his part in a secret mission in Afghanistan immediately following the 9/11 attacks. He and other Green Berets, many of them riding horses, went deep into Taliban territory to seek and destroy the enemy.

“Thanksgiving Day, 2001 I took the last group over from Fifth Special Forces Group,” Miller said during an October event for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “On the fifth of December we had a friendly fire incident in southern Afghanistan with Hamid Karzai who was there. And I went in to replace the element that had been destroyed.”

The mission, which was immortalized in the 2018 film, “12 Strong,” helped him to understand the human dimension of current operations, Miller said.

“I was in the field,” Miller said. “I was in the street.”

The article also states:

Aside from his fame among his Special Operations brethren, Miller is known within the defense community as an intellectual with direct experience in recent conflict zones.

This is obviously a good choice. Let’s hope Christopher Miller gets to stay in that job for a while.

There Are Some Things To Remember When Viewing The Truce In Afghanistan

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Hot Air (and many other places on the Internet) are reporting today that America has signed a peace treaty with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The article notes:

The United States is set to sign a peace deal Saturday with the Taliban, its adversary in Afghanistan’s 18-year war. The deal marks a major turning point in a conflict marred by years of both military and diplomatic stalemate.

One provision of the agreement is the full withdrawal of American troops that is “heavily conditions based,” according to two U.S. officials who have been briefed on the deal. The officials declined to elaborate on what exactly those conditions are. They spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the deal publicly.

The article concludes:

This is something I was venting my frustrations about on Twitter yesterday. While I would be very pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong, I can’t believe that the promises of the Taliban are worth anything. Also, even if they were being sincere, they don’t control all of the fighters in their country, so their ability to maintain a ceasefire is dubious at best.

I realize I’ve preached this line to all of you in the past, but I’ve not seen anything to sway my opinion much. The Taliban is just waiting for us to leave. If they have to wait another 14 months or another 14 years, they will. They’re very good at waiting for invading armies to grow frustrated and go home. They’ve been doing it forever. And as soon as we’re gone, they will tear now the new government and return to being a primitive, seventh century nation just as they’ve always been. At this point, we should probably just face up to that reality, use this deal as a ticket to pull our troops out and leave them to their own devices.

There are some things to remember when considering the war in Afghanistan. We made two major mistakes in that war that essentially cost us the moral high ground. Because we did not have the courage to face the problem of pedophilia in the country or to eliminate the poppy crop. Both would have been very difficult, but both would have had a positive impact on the blatant corruption in the country. Unless we were willing to overwhelm the population and stay long enough to change the culture, we were not going to be victorious there.

We also need to remember two of the basic concepts found in Islam–hudna and taqiyya. Reliance of the Traveller, which is a classical manual of fiqh for the Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence, states the following:

If the Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary, for the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him Peace) made a truce with Quraysh for that long, as it related by Abu Dawud. It is not permissible to stipulate longer than that, save by means of new truces, each of which does not exceed ten years.

The purpose of a truce (hudna) was to give the Muslims time to stockpile weapons and become stronger.

In Islamic law, an obligation to lie exists if it is the only way to achieve an obligatory goal in Islam. Al-Taqiyya is based on a concept in Quaran 3:28 and 16:106. It is also found in the hadith,  the embodiment of the sunnah, the words and actions of the prophet and his family the Ahl al-Bayt (The Twelve Imams and the prophet’s daughter, Fatimah).

We are leaving Afghanistan. Under present conditions, that is a good thing. However, to believe that this will mean that Afghanistan will no longer be a disjointed terrorist state is naive. Afghanistan has never really experienced freedom under a central government. It is naive to believe that we can superimpose a central government that espouses individual freedom over what is currently there. We need to learn the lessons of the American revolution–unless the people are willing to fight for their freedom and respect the Laws of Nature and the Laws of Nature’s God, they will never be free.

Note: the information in this article about the principles of Islam are taken from Stephen Coughlin’s book Catastrophic Failure. It is recommended reading for anyone who wants to understand the Muslim plan for worldwide Sharia Law.

 

Misplaced Concern For Human Rights

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CBN News is reporting today that the United Nations has released a list of companies that have businesses in areas Israel captured as a result of the 1967 Six-Day War.

The article reports:

The list was designed to punish more than a hundred companies doing business in east Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights. Israel froze ties with the council’s leader, accusing the office of serving the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanction) campaign.

Reaction came quickly after the report’s release and US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) accused the council of persecuting Israel while protecting the world’s worst tyrants. He called on the body to “investigate the crimes of its own members instead of obsessing over the Jewish state.”

The UN has a history of actions against Israel. The United Nations Human Rights Council was created in 2006. Since then, it has issued 45 resolutions against Israel, about 45% of all country-specific resolutions issued. The United Nations Human Rights Council includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, Qatar, Venezuela, and Libya. None of these countries are stellar examples of human rights.

The article notes:

After the release of the database Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to boycott those who boycott Israel, calling the Human Rights Council a “biased body that is devoid of influence.” His political rival, Benny Gantz, also condemned the publication, calling it a “dark day” for human rights.

Jason Greenblatt, one of the architects of President Trump’s Middle East peace plan, told CBN News the public should be pro-active against the boycott movement.

“First of all, shame on them. You know, they were working on this, they held it back and now after a peace plan is launched they go ahead and do that, shame on the Human Rights Council. The UN is a terrible place for Israel. I would actually encourage all of your viewers to write letters to [UN Secretary-General António Guterres] and protest that,” said Greenblatt.

…Ironically, any resulting boycotts would likely hurt Palestinians the most. For example, CBN News has reported how international pressure forced the SodaStream company to leave Mishor Adumim and move to Israel costing many of the 500 Palestinian employees their jobs.

“The Palestinians certainly stand to suffer if these types of measures are put in place. It will harm companies that employ Palestinians; it will harm companies that provide goods and services to Palestinians,” NGO Monitor’s Yona Schiffmiller told CBN News.

He also said the majority of the list’s information came from BDS linked groups.

“I think it’s also important to note that the activities these companies are being targeted for are completely legitimate. There is no international standard that bars business activity in occupied territories or in settlements,” Schiffmiller explained.

“Many of the companies that we’re talking about are conducting activities that are outlined in the Oslo Accords. So, these are internationally recognized agreements between Israel and the Palestinians that the UN is now completely disregarding by putting out this list,” he concluded.

The article concludes with actions that anyone can take to fight this:

Just last year, 600 businessmen and women from more than 50 countries will come to Israel to connect with and invest in Israeli business leaders for the second-annual ARISE conference.

“We’re really tackling some of the greatest crises around the world. And so, we’ve invited them to connect with Israeli businesses and meet face to face and create those connections and transactions that will help bring Israeli innovation to the world,” ARISE Founder and President Adv. Calev Myers told CBN News.

Over the last few years, various states in the US have passed laws against boycotting Israel. Schiffmiller said the international community is within its rights to stop supporting a UN body that’s potentially harming these companies.

STOP THE BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL! 
Sign the Petition
Text “STOPBDS” to 41-444
VISIT: CBN.COM/STOPBDS

Please do.

Sometimes I Just Have No Words

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We need to keep in mind that Qasem Soleimani was a terrorists. He was responsible for the killing and injuring of hundreds of American soldiers in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He was responsible for killing hundreds of Iranian civilians who were protesting the current regime. He was the coordinator of various terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East and in other parts of the world. He was not simply a high-ranking government official in Iran–he was a cold-blooded murderer.

Below is some of the insanity of the American media in dealing with the death of Soleimani (posted on YouTube January 10th):

 

Why Does The Establishment (Republicans and Democrats) Hate Donald Trump?

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Yesterday Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at American Greatness titled, “Why Do They Hate Him So?” The article analyzes the reasons that President Trump is opposed by both the political left and the establishment right.

The article states:

Again, why the unadulterated hatred? For the small number of NeverTrumpers, of course, Trump’s crudity in speech and crassness in manner nullify his accomplishments: the unattractive messenger has fouled an otherwise tolerable message.

While they recognize in the abstract that the randy JFK, the repugnant LBJ, and the horny Bill Clinton during their White House tenures were far grosser in conduct than has been Donald Trump, they either assume presidential ethics should have evolved or they were not always around to know of past bad behavior first hand, or believe Trump’s crude language is worse than prior presidents’ crude behavior in office.

The article continues:

Had Donald Trump in his first month as president declared that he was a centrist Republican —as many suspicious Never Trumpers predicted that he would, true to past form—and promoted cap-and-trade and solar and wind federal subsidies, tabled pipeline construction and abated federal leasing for gas and oil production, stayed in the Iran nuclear deal and Paris Climate Accord, appointed judges in the tradition of John Paul Stevens and David Souter, praised the “responsible” Palestinian leaders, pursued “comprehensive immigration reform” as a euphemism for blanket amnesties, then Trump would be treated largely as a George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush: hated, of course, but not obsessively so.

More importantly, had Trump just collapsed or stagnated the economy, as predicted by the likes of Paul Krugman and Larry Summers, he would now be roundly denounced, but again not so vilified, given his political utility for the Left in 2020 as a perceived Herbert Hoover-esque scapegoat.

Had Trump kept within the media and cultural sidelines by giving interviews to “60 Minutes,” speaking at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, bringing in a few old Republican hands to run the staff or handle media relations like a David Gergen or Andrew Card, Trump would have been written off as a nice enough dunce.

But Trump did none of that. So, the hatred of the media, the Left, the swamp, and the celebrity industry is predicated more on the successful Trump agenda. He is systematically undoing what Barack Obama wrought, in the manner Obama sought to undo with his eight years the prior eight years of George W. Bush.

But whereas the Obama economy stagnated and his foreign policy was seen by adversaries and rivals as a rare occasion to recalibrate the world order at American’s expense, Trump mostly did not fail—at least not yet. We are currently in an economic boom while most of the world economy abroad is inert. Had the economy just crashed as predicted, the Trump agenda would have been discredited and he would be written off a pitiful fool rather than an existential monster.

Again, hatred arises at what Trump did even more than what he says or how he says it.

The obvious conclusion:

The bipartisan Washington establishment? If an outsider Manhattan wheeler-dealer without military or political experience can at last call an appeased China to account, can avoid a Libyan fiasco, can acknowledge that America is tired of a 18-year slog in Afghanistan when others would not, or believes ISIS thrived as a result of prior arcane restrictive U.S. rules of engagement—and he is proven largely right—then what does that say about the credentialed experts who dreamed up the bipartisan conventional wisdom that with a few more concessions China would eventually become Palo Alto or that Libya would bloom at the heart of the Arab Spring?

The Left detests Trump for a lot of reasons besides winning the 2016 election and aborting the progressive project. But mostly they hate his guts because he is trying and often succeeding to restore a conservative America at a time when his opponents thought that the mere idea was not just impossible but unhinged.

And that is absolutely unforgivable.

Be prepared for a very nasty year before the election in 2020. There are a lot of very unhinged people in politics and in the media.

This Needed To Be Done

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Yesterday CBN News posted an article about President Trump’s visit to the United Nations.

The article reports:

On Monday, President Donald Trump made history with a big push for the United Nations to truly focus its attention on global religious liberty. 

On the first day of a three-day scheduled visit during the UN’s General Assembly, the President’s big focus was a meeting about the worldwide persecution of religious minorities, especially Christians.

The event called a “Global Call to Protect Religious Freedom,” was attended by key evangelical leaders including Franklin Graham, Paula White, Jentezen Franklin, Tim Clinton, and Cissie Graham Lynch. The president was introduced by Vice President Mike Pence.

President Trump began his remarks by saying, “The United States is founded on the principle that our rights don’t come from government, they come from God.”

He said the facts are clear that 80 percent of the world doesn’t enjoy the same protection for religious freedom that US citizens enjoy.

Trump said it was an “urgent moral duty” for world leaders to stop crimes against faith.

“The United States of America calls upon the nations of the world to end religious persecution, to stop the crimes against prisoners of faith, to release prisoners of conscience,” Trump said.

The Trump administration has hosted annual meetings on the topic in Washington, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced during this year’s event that he would create an international alliance dedicated to the issue.

The United Nations Human Rights Commission includes the following members: Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, South Africa, and Pakistan. In most of these countries, religious freedom is an impossible dream. In South Africa, white farmers are being murdered and their land taken. This is the United Nations President Trump is working with. I admire his effort, but I believe that the United Nations has become so corrupt that they are no longer an organization capable of working toward either peace or freedom. They need to be kicked out of New York City and dissolved.